The problems with Communion "In One Kind"

Added: 2026-05-16

[00:00:05]Welcome to another episode of Christian about this. I'm your host and servant of Jesus Christ, Paladin actual. Would it be wrong if a pastor only offered communion in one kind? That is if the pastor said, "This is the body of Christ, take and eat." But not offering the blood of Christ to, you know, the members, the laity. Now, this came up first actually with me when I was in conversation with with another Lutheran pastor, and this was years and years ago.

[00:00:31]I don't think I was even through seminary at this point. And I was talking with him and he was explaining to me saying, "Yeah, you know, it's perfectly fine to offer communion in just the one kind." I found out later that he was actually a proponent of infant communion and he didn't didn't believe in giving infants wine.

[00:00:45]Therefore, his way to get around this was to just offer the body of Christ. He would he would I I think he would mush up the consecrated host and he would offer that to the infants. Now, this came up at the time and I was like, "Well, that's kind of weird." His logic again was the blood of Christ is in the body. Therefore, when they receive the body, they actually receive both kinds even though you only offer one kind. Now, I found out later on that this is actually similar to a Roman Catholic position as well.

[00:01:16]Now, this is something that's come up a few times when I've had conversations with some Roman Catholic apologists on on Twitter, on X. And the conversation usually starts out with this thing where, you know, it's the same argument that always happens.

[00:01:29]Sola scriptura or who has the authority, the Bible or the church. And the argument eventually gets to the point where they say, "Well, the church has the authority to teach things and they are never in conflict with scripture." Now, the historical example that can be brought up is for a long period of time the Roman Catholic Church was only allowing communion to the laity in one kind. They're only allowing the laity to receive the body of Christ and not the blood of Christ as well. The blood of Christ was reserved for the priests. The The priest could receive the body and the blood. Uh the laity could only receive the body.

[00:02:02]Now, having conversations with this kind of retroactively, they have to justify this and say, "Well, no, no, no, no, no.

[00:02:07]That actually wasn't in conflict with scripture for this reason, this reason, and this reason." Uh the interesting thing is uh if you have a conversation with a Roman Catholic historian, uh they'll acknowledge the development of doctrine and and and and some difficulties better than the Roman Catholic apologist will, who just has to kind of say, "Well, no. Uh the Roman Catholic Church was never wrong in anything that they did or or or taught officially."

[00:02:28]Uh now, this is not something that was just a practice from from some of the Roman Catholics. This wasn't official Roman Catholic uh practice.

[00:02:36]As I understand it, and I haven't been to a Roman Catholic um mass for a while.

[00:02:40]I visited a couple of them when I was a chaplain just to see how it was going on. Um as I understand it now, there are many Roman Catholic masses that actually do offer the body and the blood of Christ to the laity uh rather than just restricting it to the priesthood. Um so, this is not a universal practice anymore. This is another kind of development of doctrine where they where some parishes some Roman Catholic parishes are changing their approach to this. Now, this got me thinking because I've heard this first from a a Lutheran and I and and I am increasingly convinced that this guy is not Lutheran as I hear it more hear more and more things about what he teaches and does.

[00:03:17]But, I first heard this from a Lutheran and then I hear it from Roman Catholic.

[00:03:20]So, I decided that I was going to kind of address it a little bit. A lot of people aren't even aware that this controversy exists. But, it turns out not only does this controversy exist, but it was already dealt with in the with the Augsburg Confession. Um if you're not familiar with it, the Augsburg Confession, the Lutherans basically said, "This is what we believe. Here's a bunch of scripture that backs it up. Here's a bunch of church fathers that backs it up." The Romans released something called the Confutation, which is basically they said, "Nuh-uh, that's all wrong. This is why you're wrong." Then the Lutherans responded to that with the Apology to the Augsburg Confession, in In case the Lutherans said, "Nuh-uh, this is why you're wrong. Here are further examples in church history. Here are church father quotes. Here is scripture. Um we are practicing the more ancient faith than you are. This is actually one of the um one of the examples of that. If you want to look it up, and I'll get to the at the end of the video, but it's Article 22 in the Augsburg Confession. Then read the Computation, then read the Apology, Article 22. Um but there's a couple of issues. There's a couple of issues with this idea of, "Well, you can uh communion only in one kind because the body contains the blood." And I made a list of this and I thought it was worth it was worth getting into this. Now, first, this is the error of making naturalist assumptions about a supernatural event. Uh physical naturalist assumptions about a metaphysical miraculous event. This is a problem that I see all the time when people are dealing with a creation, for example. They said, "You know, God would be lying to us or trying to deceive us if he created a world that had the appearance of age." I'm like, "Well, um boy, how old do you think Adam was when God created him 2 seconds 2 seconds before he created him?" You know, how he created Adam with maturity, with the appearance of age. How old do you think the wine at Cana was when God made that?

[00:04:58]So, the assumption um is wrong because you are expecting supernatural events to conform to natural restrictions. And you're just kind of cherry-picking these natural restrictions. Like, never mind that it's a miracle that uh the wine is present and the blood is present. Or as Roman Catholics believe, that the substance um the substance changes the substance of the wine changes from wine to blood. Never mind that that is already impossible. Um now you have to say, "Well, because even though this part is impossible, we're going to apply this naturalistic assumption uh uh on top of it." Um the example I use is I said, "This would be as dumb uh as dumb as assuming that the miraculous wine at the wedding at Cana, it had to be clear because grape skins are what give wine its color. Therefore, since no grape skins were involved in this miraculous creation of wine, it must have been clear wine.

[00:05:53]Again, applying a naturalist assumption to a miraculous event is it's dumb. Can we stop doing that? Can we like agree as a society that that like if we're going to say that something is miraculous, it either happened or it didn't happen, but we're not going to say it happened, but it had to happen in a naturalistic way.

[00:06:11]Like let's not, please. It's it's it's not worth really getting into that. Now, the second error that I found is okay. So, what you with each of these errors I kind of build off of it. Let's pretend like we've resolved the previous one and you still are saying that the the same position that the body contains the blood, therefore you receive both kinds.

[00:06:30]Is it appropriate to offer communion in just one kind? So, the second thing is even if it was right to apply naturalistic understanding to a miracle, this is incorrect that blood is in all tissue. I know I had to Google this. I'm like, okay, um somebody says that you know, the blood is in is in the flesh. All right. Is blood in every piece of flesh that you have? I Googled it. It turns out no. Um there are actually blood vessels in your like capillaries and veins and arteries and stuff like that and that's where the red blood cells are. Now, red blood cells, I guess they white blood cells in particular, they go into tissue to to help tissue fight infection and stuff like that.

[00:07:07]But there aren't blood cells in every single I don't skin like your skin, your epidermis does not have blood cells in it. Your dermis has has cells in it because it has capillaries and and blood vessels in it. Um but not every piece of your flesh actually contains blood and that which contains blood doesn't necessarily contain all of the blood, the white blood and the red blood. So, even if even if somehow you're able to say, okay, well, this naturalistic explanation that there is blood within the body, therefore eating the body, you receive the blood, um even if you were able to demonstrate that somehow, you still have the problem of, okay, you want to be naturalistic about this, you want to be purely naturalistic about it.

[00:07:44]Okay, what parts of the body actually have blood in them? Are you saying that either the Well, okay, I'm going to I'm skipping ahead to another argument.

[00:07:54]Are you saying that the entire body is contained within this miraculously, therefore all of the blood is also contained, therefore all of everything else that is in the body like the bile and the and the sweat and the everything else is contained in this?

[00:08:07]Where Where's Where's your Where's your limitation here? Where is uh Where is the end of your explanation here? Um So, yeah, I looked this up. I was like, I'm just curious. Like, am I going to sound stupid if I say that there isn't blood in every part of in every um in every part of the flesh? No, it turns out there's not blood in every part of the flesh. I was I was I was right. I got like a D in uh high school biology. But, turns out you can just Google stuff. Who knew? Now, we went from stupid to really stupid with this line of thought, but in case we weren't done being stupid about this, let's be more stupid about this.

[00:08:39]Let's bypass the first two problems.

[00:08:41]Let's say that in the Bible it said that the the the blood is in the body and then that this is referring to the naturalistic explanation, whatever.

[00:08:48]Let's However, you want to bypass it, let's bypass these first two problems and and move on next.

[00:08:54]Now, you are presenting what is called a Capernaitic understanding of the eating of the flesh of Christ. The Capernaitic understanding is based on You can look up Capernaitic eating if you if you want. It's based on this idea that you are munching and crunching on the actual skin cells and bones of Christ. Now, what we're actually confessing in what Lutherans and even Roman Catholics are actually confessing um in uh the miracle of the Eucharist is not that you are eating skin cells. It's not that you are eating uh bone or muscle tissue. It's not that you're eating physical tissue itself. It That It's not a Capernaitic eating. The Romans, first of all, the Romans confess transubstantiation. That means the substance changes. That means the identity of the thing changes, but the physical aspect of it, the accident does not change. That would be transformation, which the Roman Catholics don't believe.

[00:09:45]Yet, somehow trans- They do believe it when there's there's blood in the in the Eucharist. So, there are their Eucharistic miracles where they have red mold growing on the Eucharist and they're like, "Look, there's blood." I'm like, "Okay, well, now you're believing in transformation."

[00:09:57]>> [laughter] >> Um, not transubstantiation.

[00:09:59]Transubstantiation is what they believe, that the identity changes of of um the bread. So, the bread is physically bread, but identifies as or is identified by God miraculously as the body of Christ.

[00:10:13]The Lutherans take the much more biblical and confusing position of Jesus said that this is his body, and the Bible also says that this bread that we eat, this this cup that we drink. So, the bread is there, the body is there.

[00:10:27]We don't know how. It's a miracle. God said so, we believe it, we don't have to explain it. That's the Lutheran position of it. We say, "I don't know how God did it." He just It's true. The The thing that you eat is the body of Christ and also the bread. Both of those things are consumed by you physically.

[00:10:44]Um, don't try to explain it too much. But, either if you're Lutheran or if you're Roman Catholic, you don't This This conflicts with with either of your worldviews.

[00:10:54]Um, that you have these that you have this physical blood mingled So, therefore, the spiritual is connected to the physical, which is connected to the physical flesh, which is actually spiritually connected to the physical bread. It doesn't make any sense.

[00:11:07]Uh, so, even if you're a Lutheran, you believe that miraculously, in a way God never explains, both body and bread are present in the host, both wine and blood are present in the cup. Nothing about capillaries and blood vessels. That's not part of the belief at all. It's purely the the capillaries and blood vessels purely naturalistic assumptions is what this is. You're assuming that because there is this is the body of Christ, that naturally there's going to be everything that you can find within a body. Or, really, you're just assuming that there's going to be capillaries and there's going to be like I don't know.

[00:11:36]Like it it it's wild to even think about because it doesn't make sense.

[00:11:40]But, let's assume. Let's further assume all of these things are dealt with. All of these objections are dealt with somehow.

[00:11:49]You square the circle of transubstantiation actually means a physical aspect. Uh the transformation also happens in a spiritual or whatever.

[00:11:58]I don't think the circle can be squared, but let's pretend like we did. Let's let's let's answer all three of these things. We say, "Okay, you know, we we worked this all out."

[00:12:05]Let's say you can definitively show that the blood of Christ is actually present in the body of Christ and the believer is receiving the body and the blood of Christ by take and eat by the consecrated host. Let's bypass all these three points so far. You are now left with the trump card. What did Jesus say to do? Jesus says to eat and to drink.

[00:12:29]The host and the cup are to both be consumed to eat and to drink during the Eucharist. This is also one of the reasons why Lutherans and really everybody should kind of should oppose intinction cuz Jesus doesn't say take and dunk and eat the soggy eat the soggy consecrated host. He says eat and drink these two separate things. Now, the body and blood if you have intinction, yeah, the body and blood are both being consumed, but how far do you get away from what Christ commanded you to do before you're in dangerous waters.

[00:12:59]So, even if all the blood is present if all the blood is present in the body if the blood and the body are both contained within the singular host, even then God still told you to drink.

[00:13:14]God still expects you to drink from the cup.

[00:13:17]Even if you use your magisterial reason to get around why we commune in both kinds. At the end of the day, well, or perhaps at the beginning of the day if you wanted to start off with what did Jesus say to do? It's God's command.

[00:13:27]Take and eat and take and drink. This kind of trumps everything. Now, this is something that is is explained in the Augsburg Confession as well. So, the Augsburg Confession, Article 22, talks about receiving both kinds of the sacraments. And I'm going to read that part and then I'm going to summarize the rest of it. So, Article 22 says this, "To the laity are given both kinds of the sacrament of the Lord's Supper because this is the usage that has been commanded by the Lord in Matthew 26:27, 'Drink ye all of it.' Uh where Christ manifestly concerning the cup that all should drink unless any man should craftily say that this refers only to priests. If you read the Confutation, that's exactly what they say.

[00:14:05]Paul in 1 Corinthians 11:27 recites an example from which it appears that the whole congregation did use both kinds. Yeah. So, if the argument, and this was interesting that this came up, is you got the Last Supper, Jesus says take and eat, take and drink. Um I had a Roman Catholic online say, "Yeah, but that only applies to the priests because Jesus is talking to the people who would then become his apostles. And then, I mean, Judas as well, but the people who would become his apostles, therefore that's only the priests who should take and eat, take and drink." And I was thinking for a second, I'm like, "Did you were you not aware that this is like repeated in 1 Corinthians 11?"

[00:14:39]Um this is In fact, 1 Corinthians 11 gives us a lot of our theology behind the Lord's Supper. Paul explains it even more.

[00:14:46]And in 1 Corinthians 11, you have the laity eating and drinking inappropriately, but they are eating and drinking. Now, Paul does not say, "You should not drink because you are not ordained."

[00:14:56]He says, "What you guys are doing is is is stupid and wrong. You are This Lord's Supper that you're doing, people are getting drunk, people are going hungry, people are abusing it. All of these things. You should be doing it, but you should be doing it the right way." is what Paul says in 1 Corinthians 11. So, this argument that it's only for the laity is only for the the priests and the laity only get to eat the host. It's it's nonsense. It's nowhere nowhere in Scripture.

[00:15:18]All right.

[00:15:20]Back to the Augsburg Confession, uh line four. And this this usage has long remained in the church has long remained in the church, nor is it known when or by whose authority it was changed, although Cardinal Cusanus mentions the time when it was approved.

[00:15:36]Cyprian in some places testifies that the blood was given to the people. So, this is something that the Lutherans do a lot. I know the Roman Catholics like to say, "Well, you know, the Lutherans are sola scriptura. I mean, they they basically invented all of their doctrine. Nothing that they believe came before." I'm like, read the apology of the Augsburg Read the Augsburg Confession. Like, it's non-stop citations of church fathers.

[00:15:56]Um everything that the Lutherans believe was believed here or there by by various church fathers. All right. Um let's go on a to verse six or line six.

[00:16:06]The same The same is testified by Jerome. He's So, he's another church father, who says the priests administer the Eucharist and distribute the blood of Christ to the people. Indeed, Pope Gelasius commands us that the that sacrament not be divided. Uh and then he gives us a citation here.

[00:16:21]Only custom, not so ancient, has it otherwise. But it is evident that any custom introduced against the commandments of God is not to be allowed, as the canons witness. Another citation here. But this custom uh but this custom has been received not only against scripture, but also against the old canons and the example of the church. Therefore, if any prefer to use both kinds of the sacrament, they ought not to have been compelled with offense of their conscience to do otherwise. And because the division of the sacrament does not agree with the ordinance of Christ, we are accustomed to omit the procession, which hitherto has been in use. So, the Lutherans are saying, "This tradition, this custom that you have, is new. You guys invented this new thing.

[00:17:03]The ancient church didn't practice it, and specifically God commands contrary to it. What you are doing is an innovation." This is what the Lutheran theology is all about. It's like, "Hey, we are actually Catholics, but like the ones who came before you guys. We didn't have all these stupid new inventions like denying the the blood of Christ to the laity. Now, the Computation goes back about a Computation is quite a bit chunkier to read. It's a lot more text.

[00:17:31]Um And then the Apology to the Augsburg Confession kind of responds to the Computation. So, it's also longer than the original Augsburg Confession article itself. But, basically the Roman Catholic argument is it's specious at best.

[00:17:46]They they reference like uh the priests in 1 Samuel 2:36 receiving more or a different portion than everybody else. They they make connections that aren't there. Um and at the end of the day, the Apology basically says like, "Look, I don't care if this guy did this i- i- this was the tradition in some churches, which by the way, you guys have not been able to provide examples of. So, first of all, I don't believe you. And second of all, even if I did believe you, they did not have the authority to contradict Christ's command, and neither do you." So, this is a pretty well-set issue. It should be well-set within Christendom, but it is also especially well-set within Lutheranism, or it should be to those pastors who have sworn to follow the the Book of Concord. So, again, is it appropriate for a pastor to say, "I am not going to give you the blood of Christ. You may have the body of Christ because there's blood within the body."

[00:18:37]No, it is not appropriate at all. And even if you could make that logical argument somehow, God's word trumps what you believe about that thing. It is not appropriate. Take and eat, take and drink the body and the blood. Both are to be offered to those who are receiving communion.

[00:18:55]I This is weird that this even had to be a conversation, but the reality is that there's a lot of this theology stuff. Go and read your Book of Concord again.

[00:19:02]There's a lot of like really exciting, interesting topics that you're like, "I can't believe these guys were arguing about this." Like, why was this ever our practice?

[00:19:09]But, you know, this has to be defended because this was a historic practice of the of the Roman Catholic Church. Again, Roman Catholic historians, they they can figure their way through this, but this is kind of stumping to Roman Catholic apologists who have to basically hold this position that well, we weren't wrong in anything we ever did and we didn't change our mind about anything and we never contradicted scripture. So, how do we square this circle? Like can we just like regardless of whatever happened historically. Like you can say, "Hey, look, the Roman Catholic Church was was wrong about this thing at this point. Uh we're doing something better now.

[00:19:43]Thanks be to God that the that the the lady with the Roman Catholic Church now more regularly receive the body and the blood of Christ as he commanded as blesses them. Thanks be to God for that.

[00:19:54]We don't have to like we don't have to get hung up on defending history when what was done in history was not the best.

[00:20:02]>> [laughter] >> So, I don't know. This was an interesting topic for me to to get into. Another excuse to read the Book of Concord, to read scripture again.

[00:20:11]Um but this just goes to show that not every minute on X is wasted. It is an interesting PvP experience. It's a fun multiplayer game.

[00:20:19]Um I don't think everybody's playing by the same rules though. I hope this was enjoyable to you. I hope maybe it taught you something a little bit of history, a little bit of what Lutherans believe, maybe a little bit about Roman Roman Catholics believe.

[00:20:30]Um yeah, God bless you all and take care.